


Wolf Within

by wynnebat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Peter Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon, Attempted Murder, BAMF Stiles Stilinski, Beta Stiles Stilinski, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Minor Character Death, Moral Ambiguity, Murder, Season/Series 01, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-02 20:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14552640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: Instead of convincing Scott to regain his humanity by killing the Alpha, Derek offers another possible solution.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first 3 lines of the fic were taken directly from S1E8. As of the beginning of the fic, Peter’s rampage at the high school has already happened, Allison just broke up with Scott because of all his secrets, & no one knows Peter is the Alpha yet.

_“I can’t do this. I can’t be this and be with Allison. I need you to tell me the truth,” Scott says. “Is there a cure?”_

_Derek is slow to answer. “For someone who was bitten… I’ve heard of one. I don’t know if it’s true.”_

_“What is it?”_

_“There’s a ritual transfer your lycanthropy to someone who will willingly take your power. But if it works—and I doubt it will—it will only leave another person in the situation you are now.”_

 

*

 

Growing up in Beacon Hills, Stiles has seen the town in nearly every possible light. He’s been here through parades and elections, droughts and mourning, sunrises (although admittedly he’s seen few of those) and sunsets. Beacon Hills is particularly beautiful at night, when you’re looking down at the town from the scenic overlook a fifteen minute drive into the preserve. The road here is well-paved, the paths next to it well-trodden by hikers and tourists alike. A few benches line the cliffside, which opens up to a stunning view of Beacon Hills lit up against the darkness of the night.

“We shouldn’t let this turn into a habit,” Scott says, handing the bottle of bourbon back over to Stiles and leaning back on the bench. He spreads his arm out over the top of the bench, his hand stopping to rest on Stiles’ shoulder.

The warmth of Scott’s touch is good; the warmth of the alcohol filched from his dad’s cabinet is even better. Stiles limits himself to one gulp and passes the bottle back to Scott. He can’t let himself get drunk this time. “I think this is the most normal high schooler thing we’ve done in weeks.”

“Maybe months. We weren’t exactly normal before.”

“I was so normal until you dragged me down to your geeky level,” Stiles grumbles, poking Scott in the side. “At least we’re drinking in a great location instead of one of Jackson’s douchey parties.”

Scott tenses. “Yeah.”

Right, Jackson, who’s blackmailing Scott and trying to steal his girl. Not that Allison’s Scott’s girlfriend anymore, but Stiles isn’t going to bring that one up. Talking about how many fish there are in the sea only leads Scott to talking for twice as long about how much he loves Allison. Stiles turns away from the town and looks at his best friend.

Under the light of the moon, Scott’s pensive expression really does make him resemble Batman’s gloomy brooding thing. Beacon Hills isn’t as bad as Gotham, but it’s still full of more than its share of wacko criminals. The town looks innocent from so high up, but it’s hiding more shit than Stiles could’ve ever imagined existing. Christ, if only he’d never gone out that night they found the body. If only he hadn’t taken Scott. Stiles doesn’t feel guilty for it, not exactly, but he does regret it to hell and back. If he hadn’t been so morbidly curious, so delighted about Beacon Hills getting a murder of its own, then maybe he and Scott would’ve been safe from this madness.

But in all honesty… even if he and Scott hadn’t gone out that night, they would’ve gone out the next or investigated the murders once they continued. Stiles doesn’t trust much but he trusts his own dumb-ass sense of curiosity.

“So when are we going to do it?” Stiles asks, because even unsaid, this is what this whole night has been leading toward. Ever since Scott had told him what Derek had said yesterday, Stiles knew he’d make the offer.

“You don’t have to do this,” Scott says, his eyes almost a wolfy gold.

“I know,” Stiles replies.

If Scott hadn’t wanted this moment right here, he wouldn’t have told Stiles about this possible cure at all. They’d already tried this with Jackson, who’d been more than willing, but the ritual had just fizzled out without a single hint of power exchanged. There’s only one more person in Scott’s life who already knows about the existence of werewolves and isn’t one already. (Their social circle really could use some work.) Just one person who’s seen how lycanthropy has been slowly driving Scott mad, tearing him from his normal life and the future he could’ve had with the girl he loves.

It’s a combination of things that have led the both of them here. Scott’s his brother in all but blood, but Stiles wouldn’t do this just because of misplaced guilt or fuzzy feelings of friendship, although both factor in to why they’ve dragged themselves out here tonight. That night a few days ago when the alpha had chased them all around the high school and killed the security guard right in front of them had been the most terrifying night of Stiles’ life. Not the worst—that one goes to the night his mother died—but Stiles had been certain that if the Alpha didn’t rip his throat out, he would just die of fear anyway. He needs something more than sarcasm and quick thinking if he’s going to survive in this town. More importantly, he’s going to need something more to protect his dad, who’s in so much more danger than he realizes as the sheriff.

And maybe there’s a different kind of self-preservation in this, too. If Scott’s not a werewolf anymore, Stiles won’t have to worry about his best friend trying to kill him, which has become a hobby of Scott’s wolfy side at this point. He’ll also be able to stop thinking about Scott directly or indirectly hurting his dad. The indirectly part had already taken place once, with Stiles’ dad being hit by a car, but Stiles doesn’t like the odds of Scott hurting his dad directly. At least Stiles knows that his anchor will be his dad. He’d kill himself before hurting him. He’ll make sure the wolfy part of his brain realizes that quickly.

“I meant it,” Scott repeats, his hand tight around Stiles’ shoulder. “You don’t have to do this.”

“You want me to do this,” Stiles says, not trying to be mean, but not willing to let Scott pretend otherwise. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t so desperately want to be human again. And I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to do this, either.”

“I know. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to get you to do something you don’t want to do.”

“Can’t say the same in reverse,” Stiles says, grinning despite himself at all the things he’s gotten Scott into over the years. If he weren’t the sheriff’s kid, he’d have been in so much more trouble some of those times. “Look, it’s the best possible time to do this, on the day after the full moon. I’ll have an entire month to get used to this before going crazy and macking on Allison.”

To Scott’s credit, he doesn’t growl at him, even if he does frown pitifully. “I deserved that one.”

“You did.” Stiles really wouldn’t mind tying Scott up and shooting lacrosse balls at him again. It would do wonders for his anger over Scott kissing Lydia and then taunting him about it. At least half of it was the moon driving Scott mad, but Stiles hasn’t been unaware of the interested way Lydia’s been looking at his best friend ever since Scott began to kick ass at lacrosse.

He takes a moment to imagine a possible tomorrow: Stiles Stilinski, star lacrosse player, first line. He could wow Lydia with his skills and his willingness to let her walk all over him. If she’s looking for a way to get back at Jackson for flirting with Allison, Stiles would happily step right up. (And then he’d hate himself for it, because Lydia’s a goddess but he’s seen the way she treats Jackson. He doesn’t actually want to become Jackson 2.0.) It’s never going to happen, of course. Stiles loves lacrosse, but he doesn’t love it enough to die for it with all the trigger-happy hunters in town. He’s also not getting anywhere near Allison, no matter how pretty she is. Scott can make all the bad decisions he wants, but Stiles knows how Romeo and Juliet ends.

“Anything you want to do before we get started?” Stiles asks. “Howl at the moon, maybe?”

He cranes his head back just to see it as a human for possibly the last time in his life. It’s more likely than not that nothing will happen. Derek had said that he didn’t even know if the ritual worked; it was just something he’d heard. But if it does…

“No, thanks,” Scott huffs. “I don’t trust myself to not sound like a dying cat again.” But he does shift, slowly looking around, taking in the view and Stiles and the nature around them. “If it works, I’m going to miss just how much I can see and smell and hear.”

But Scott doesn’t sound all that wistful, his head turning back to glance down at his claws with a scowl. Stiles has no guarantees that his own claws and disappearing eyebrows will be easy to control. Objectively… Stiles is more prepared for this than Scott was, than Scott tried to be. Since Scott was bitten, Stiles has spent countless nights researching werewolves and emailing Scott a hundred or so links that he knows his best friend hasn’t opened. He’s been able to figure out how to control Scott’s shift without any idea of what the hell he’s doing. He’s done a hell of a lot more to help than Derek has and Derek’s been a werewolf his whole life.  Neither does Stiles have any ridiculous attraction to someone whose family wants to cut him in half or an all-consuming love of lacrosse.

And maybe it’ll help that he wants this, that he’s going to grasp whatever happens with both hands. Maybe he’s being overconfident, but his gut is blasting Werewolves of London at him at full volume.

It won’t be a cakewalk. Stiles has no idea whether this will cure his ADHD or make things even worse. And if he’s being honest, it might not be the best thing to combine Stiles’ anger issues with a set of claws. But there’s still a chance, and it’s a good chance. A chance that they’ll both get what they want: Scott could be with Allison, Stiles could get the power to protect himself and his dad.

And there’s the fact that if they don’t do this, if they don’t at least try, Stiles will spend the rest of his life wondering what if.

With a decisive nod, Stiles stands up and grabs his backpack from the dirt. He pulls out a section of the same wolfsbane rope that Derek had buried Laura with, tensing once Scott begins to growl.

“Go on,” Scott says through a mouthful of fangs. “I can do this.”

“You did it once with Jackson, you can do it again,” Stiles agrees.

Scott whimpers as Stiles wraps one end of the rope around Scott’s wrist and the other around his own. It’s caked with dirt and its blue flowers have lost most of their color, but it’s still powerful enough to leave Scott panting. Scott’s wrist has already begun to swell.

“Bro, do you bestow upon me your mighty werewolf powers?” Stiles asks. Derek had said that it didn’t really matter what they both said during the ceremony. What mattered was their willingness for the exchange to occur.

“I do,” Scott says, managing to roll his glowing eyes. “Do you, Stiles Stilinski, want to hurry up and accept my horrible werewolf powers before this thing causes my arm to fall off?”

“I sure do,” Stiles replies.

He picks up the pocketknife his dad had given him years ago and cuts across the palm of his hand, then hands it over to Scott, who does the same.

“We never did do the whole blood brother thing as kids,” Stiles says, wincing as he presses the rope against the wound. “Looks like this is giving us the chance.”

Across from him, Scott hisses as he does the same. “I just hope whichever one of us ends up human doesn’t get an infection.” He extends his hand toward Stiles, a determined look on his wolfed-out face. “Blood brothers, huh?”

“You know it,” Stiles replies, his locked on Scott’s. Whatever happens, happens. He can’t take another day of chasing after Scott to convince him that he should prioritize not accidentally murdering people over playing lacrosse.

It’s almost like they’re just righting a wrong, changing the Alpha’s decision that horrible night. He’d had two paths and he’d chosen Scott; now they’d see what would’ve happened if the beast had chosen Stiles.

He grasps Scott’s hand and immediately has to tamp down on a scream. Fuck, fuck, it hurts. Is it supposed to hurt? When they’d done this with Jackson, nothing had happened at all. Certainly not an overwhelming pain both on his side and Scott’s. Stiles clenches his hand around Scott’s, trying not to let go even as Scott shakes and lets out horrible sounds that tug something loose inside Stiles. They fall back onto the bench when it gets to be too much to continue standing, but Stiles doesn’t let go, not even when Scott tries to pull away. It’s too late now; he has to see this through.

Stiles really, really hopes this isn’t a sign of them having accidentally done something wrong and the whole thing killing them. Derek hadn’t said anything about it being dangerous, just nearly impossible. If fucking Jackson got out out this alive while Stiles dies, he’s going to be so pissed. He’ll haunt Jackson and Scott and even the Alpha, and he’ll take his cues from the scariest of the horror movies he’s watched.

Between one stuttering breath and the next, the pain vanishes, leaving behind a sudden absence of pain that’s disquieting until Stiles gets used to it. Slowly, he opens his eyes and forces his hand to unclench itself from Scott’s. The wolfsbane rope is gone, having left behind only a few clumps of ash on their hands and clothes. When Stiles turns his hand over, the gash is gone, too. His hand is completely healed. Scott’s staring down at his own hand and when Stiles catches a glimpse, he sees a fully healed scar running across his palm.

“Can you shift?” Stiles asks, just to check. His heart is thudding fast with the certainty that Scott’s answer will be no.

Scott scrunches his face, but his eyebrows stay in place and there’s not a fleck of gold in his eyes. “No, I can’t.” Within seconds, he’s lunging across the bench and hugging Stiles tightly. “Oh my god, I’m human again. Thank you. Thank you, Stiles.”

Stiles doesn’t know how to say _you’re welcome_ when it’s something like this, something so huge and life-changing and insane. They really did it. It’s hard to choke out the words, but Stiles still jokes, “I guess I’m Batman now.”

“You always were,” Scott replies, pulling back. “Can you shift?”

Stiles furrows his eyebrows and tries to kind of nudge himself into wolfing out. He flexes his hands, but his nails don’t change. “Maybe it takes some time. It took a day with you, right?”

“Yeah,” Scott agrees. “We can figure it out later. But Stiles, do you know what this means?”

Having to keep all of this a secret in order to stay safe from hunters. Being drawn to an alpha who might be angry about them doing a beta swap. Having the power to better protect his dad and himself instead of being bashed into steering wheels and useless against even actual mountain lion attacks. But that’s not what Scott’s talking about, of course.

“Allison?”

“I can be with her now,” Scott says, dreamily. “Now that I don’t have to worry about her dad, I can get her back. I know I can.”

“Without breathing a word to her about werewolves?” Stiles makes sure. “Promise me, Scott. I don’t care how in love with her you are. You can’t tell her anything. That night at school it was Derek in a fursuit trying to freak us out or a mountain lion or whatever. That’s it.”

“I promise,” Scott says, looking determined. “You did this for me, gave my humanity back to me. It’s the least I can do.”

Stiles nods, giving Scott one last serious look. Scott can tell Allison about every moment of Stiles’ life, embarrassing and terrifying, but he can’t tell her about this. “Alright, come on, Robin.”

“Hey!” Scott calls, chasing after him as Stiles speed-walks toward the parking lot where they’d left the Jeep. “Just because I’m not Batman doesn’t mean I’m Robin!”

Stiles hums in something like agreement and barely feels the tap of Scott’s elbow against his ribs. That’s different. And that’s just the first of the differences. When he looks up at the moon, even with his regular eyes, there’s something more alluring about it than there has ever been. A part of him wants to call to it right then and there, but he didn’t lose his brain when he lost his humanity.

A howl coming from somewhere behind them as they head back to civilization sounds too loud, too close, but when Stiles turns around, he can’t see a thing. Scott doesn’t hear it at all.

 

*

 

The chains Stiles bought for Scott’s first full moon come in handy again. Stiles takes the long length of chain out of the bag first and wraps it around his waist, then attaches the ends to the bed with two padlocks he’d found in the garage. He handcuffs his dominant arm to the bed and throws the key across the room. His phone he keeps close at hand just in case Scott forgets to come let him out tomorrow morning. Thankfully, his dad has an evening shift and there’s no chance of him walking in on his little self-bondage session.

Scott was able to get out of his pair of handcuffs, but that had been with the added power of the full moon. Stiles is hoping these hold for him. He’s terrified of what will happen if these chains fail him, but that’s his rational mind. The completely irrational part of his mind feels completely content with this new part of him.

Stiles expects to wait hours for sleep to come, but it takes only minutes for him to feel himself starting to fall asleep. The wolf takes this as its opportunity to pounce. It catches him in the place between dream and reality, striding confidently toward Stiles from the darkness all around them.

And why wouldn’t it be confident when its welcome is assured? He’d asked for it, tearing the lycanthropy out of Scott’s body. He’d bled to have this creature: the wolf inside of every werewolf, the creature of instinct that calls for the moon.

They’re two sides of a coin he will carry for the rest of his days: Stiles the human and Stiles the wolf.

 _Do you trust me?_ the wolf asks.

 _Not on your life,_ Stiles says with a snort. He’s never been a very trusting guy and nothing formed from the instincts he normally keeps buried is going to be anything nice. And yet he reaches down and catches his hands in the wolf’s fur, threads his fingers through the dark fur atop its head. It’s a gray wolf, a young one relative to Stiles’ own age, though it rankles to be represented by something to young. Stiles buries his face in its fur and thinks he’s never going to let it go. He’s never loved something so quickly, so certainly as he knows he loves this wolf. He doesn’t know how Scott could’ve parted from his own.

 _Do you trust him?_ he asks the wolf, pulling back to look into its golden eyes.

The wolf’s mouth opens to reveal all its fangs. _No, but I want him. You will, too._

 _It’s too late to regret this, I guess,_ Stiles says instead of a wholehearted agreement.

The wolf licks his chin. _If you decide you don’t want him, we’ll rip his throat out. We look good in red, human._

Stiles opens his eyes with a smile on his lips. He feels the tug now that Scott must’ve felt, though he’s aware enough to get himself out of his chains instead of hurting himself. The wolf pushes out of him and the chain linking the two sides of his handcuffs snaps under Stiles’ clawed fingers. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror before he turns human again. The sight should be jarring, but Stiles is half-asleep, and the part of him that is awake is already turned toward the door. Toward his Alpha. The wolf bounces with every step he takes and Stiles wants to run, but he’s not interested in revealing himself to all the hunters crawling around and takes the Jeep instead. The wolf howls mournfully, but it knows Stiles will run another day.

Hardly anyone’s out this late, thank fuck, because Stiles is only barely aware enough to stop at all the red lights and stop signs on the way. He stops in a parking lot at the back of the hospital, in a section he hasn’t been to in years. Every step he takes is a step closer to the Alpha.

The window is open. He’s expected.

Stiles jumps up and pulls himself inside. The room is dark, but Stiles can see the way the Alpha’s arm reaches for him.

 _Alpha,_ the wolf croons. _Alpha. Alpha._

His Alpha’s touch is gentle as he pulls Stiles closer and runs a claw down Stiles’ throat. Stiles shudders, but he steps closer, intoxicated by the smell of home and safety and Alpha. _I’m not afraid of you,_ Stiles had said, locking the alpha up beneath the school. He’d been lying. If he says it now, he wouldn’t be, but only because everything feels so dreamy and distant. It feels right.

The Alpha chuckles at the way Stiles can’t seem to get close enough. The next thing Stiles knows, they’re on the bed, and Stiles’ face is tucked into the crook of the Alpha’s neck. Stiles can’t possibly get any closer, but he tries anyway.

“I like you better when you’re not trying to kill me,” Stiles mutters, pretty sure he’s about to fall into an actual sleep now.

“You don’t have anything to fear from me anymore,” the Alpha says. His hand rests on the back of Stiles’ head, the tips of his fingers resting on Stiles’ neck. One wrong move and Stiles would never be able to move away in time, but Stiles can’t force himself to feel the worry he should be feeling.

“You’re a liar, but you smell nice.” But the wolf needs reassurance, so Stiles asks, “You’re not angry? You chose Scott, not me.”

“Oh Stiles,” the Alpha says. “This couldn’t possibly have worked out better for me.”

Stiles doesn’t yet know how to distinguish lies from truth, but the Alpha sounds so satisfied that Stiles doesn’t doubt him. He has questions, so many of them, but the pull of slumber takes him before he can speak again.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles wakes up in stages. The dream—himself running under the full moon, so cliche and yet wolf-him is so thrilled to be there—fades slowly from his mind. Stiles tries to latch on to it, since it was a good one, but the warmth he feels in the land of waking is pretty alright too. There’s someone next to him, but it doesn’t strike him as all that odd until Stiles opens his eyes and sees a blurry figure sitting upright against the wall and typing something on his phone.

“That’s my phone,” Stiles grumbles, blinking his eyes. And then it sinks in. “Oh shit, this isn’t my bedroom. You’re not Scott.”

He scrambles upright, but despite his fear, he isn’t awake enough to do it even halfway gracefully. Stiles flails, trying to get himself upright without strangling himself with the sheet and cozy blanket atop himself. His hands get caught up in the sheets and there’s a tearing noise that only means one thing—he’s managed to pop his claws by accident. Oh god, he’s even worse than Scott, this is the worst idea he’s ever had, and now there are hands holding his shoulders down, pushing Stiles down from the precarious balance he’d been in to sitting down on his legs. Stiles should be too afraid to feel embarrassed, but apparently his body is perfectly capable of feeling both in equal measure.

“Stay,” the man—Peter Hale, because there’s no one else this could be—says.

“I’m not a dog,” Stiles immediately says. He ignores the fact that Peter’s now leaning in to untangle his claws from the ripped blankets. His heart is still beating so rapidly that Stiles can hear it with his newly enhanced senses as well as just feeling it in his chest. “Actually, I guess I can’t make dog jokes anymore now that I’m one of you guys. I’m still not staying just because you told me to.”

Peter shoots him a look. Despite the scarring on the right side of his face, the man still looks unfairly attractive. His blue eyes are vivid and clear. He tugs the last of Stiles’ claws out of the sheets and taps his finger on the tip of Stiles’ left pointer finger’s claw. “Do you know how to retract these?”

Stiles wavers between answering the question and making a run for it, but Peter doesn’t look like he’s about to turn into a murderous beast and chase him through the hospital. Yet. “I’m trying to get my heart rate down, but it’s a little hard since I’m sitting a foot away from a murderer.”

“They had it coming,” Peter says, firmly.

“Because they helped kill your family,” Stiles confirms, getting a nod of acknowledgment from Peter. “But I’m pretty sure neither me nor my friends—or Jackson—are guilty of that considering we were all ten and eleven when the fire happened. So, uh, could you consider _not_ murdering me and the rest of us in cold blood?”

“You’re not going to ask me to stop killing people completely?” Peter asks, raising an eyebrow. The only one he has, because the other side of his face is still so horribly scarred.

Stiles swallows. Here, with the irrefutable proof of how horrible the Hale fire had been, he can’t force his already faulty moral compass to point north. “No.” He tries to say more, but even that much feels too honest. His dad would be ashamed, but the wolf inside him roars with approval. Pack is everything to the wolf and it loves that Peter understands that. Except, “Is Derek one of the people you’re going to kill? Is that why you’re making him run around cluelessly?”

“Derek just barely avoided a plot in Beacon Hills’ cemetery,” Peter says, his lips curling. “Do you want to hear the real story of what happened that summer?”

“Yes, tell me everything,” Stiles quickly says. Because that’s why he’s still here: to get information. Not because he’s gone insane. And certainly not because his wolf is under the impression that all of this is great.

“Seven years ago, I moved back to Beacon Hills at my sister’s urging. The town was drawing in trouble of the supernatural kind at a shocking rate and she had finally admitted she needed help. I joined the four other adult members of the Hale pack—Talia, Laura, Talia’s husband Joseph, our sister Cathy—in running ourselves ragged trying to find the problem. At first, we thought it was an issue with the nemeton, but as far as we could tell it wasn’t active. So busy were we that we didn’t pay attention to what the younger members of our pack were getting up to.”

“Derek? But he wouldn’t have done anything to hurt you. He’s all werewolves, rah rah.”

“Not knowingly. He fell into a relationship with a girl four years older than him—twenty to his sixteen—a hunter by the name of Kate Argent. She claimed to have come to town to investigate the rumors cropping up, although I would later find out that she had been here for months, drawing in creatures in ways someone attuned to the behaviors of savage creatures can. She needed us distracted. Derek must have had such a grand time teaching her about the ways of the ‘good’ kinds of werewolves while she and her accomplices drew out everything they needed to burn my family alive. There were eleven people in the house that day, caught behind mountain ash and rowan and poisoned with wolfsbane gas. The humans died first. The others… we tried desperately to get out. I was the only one to survive. Derek and Laura were the lucky ones, having snuck out to be rebellious teenagers for one last time before Laura was set to leave for her final year of college. They stayed for a grand total of a week before leaving town, leaving me here for six years.”

“Abandonment isn’t reason enough to kill your niece,” Stiles says, swallowing. “They were traumatized kids. Twenty-one and sixteen. You can’t put this on them.”

“They were old enough to do something other than flee,” Peter sneers, his eyes hard. “Maybe for a year. Maybe two. But they spent six years living their lives while the people who killed our family walked and lived their miserable little lives. One of them even visited me. The security guard. _I_ _’m sorry,_ he said, as though he had any right to. Laura had the gall to try to convince me to stop—she was smarter than Derek at least, who’s still under the impression that someone other than us Hales gives a damn about what happened—and said she’d worked so hard to put all of this behind her. She had six years of life while I had six years locked inside my head with burns that wouldn’t heal unless I found a way to get stronger. Laura was… convenient.”

Stiles’ shoulders are tight, his hands clenched, but he sits there and listens even as Peter’s eyes flash red. It all sounds completely plausible, which is a problem. Stiles already knew that the Argents had to have been involved somehow and it aligns with everything his dad has discovered. He’s still going to go to Derek for confirmation, but his gut clenches with certainty.

“I don’t want forgiveness,” Peter adds, his voice low and deep. Something horrible rages in Peter’s eyes. Stiles hates the fact that he cares. He doesn’t know if it’s himself or his wolf that reaches out to touch Peter’s hand. Sometime during the time Peter was talking, Stiles’ claws retracted. Stupidly, he’s almost surprised to find Peter’s skin so warm, despite the cold and terrifying way his expression has gotten. “If anything, I want understanding, but I don’t need it,” Peter finally says. “I want blood.”

And yet, Peter’s hand turns in Stiles’ grip, clenching around Stiles’ like a lifeline.

Stiles isn’t going to turn him in. If not even a coma could hold Peter, he doubts a cell made for humans will, either. He’s not going to kill him. Stiles the wolf shies away from it and Stiles the stupid, reckless teenage boy thinks of his parents and knows he would’ve burned the world if they’d been murdered. He has a choice here. Stiles has always had a choice, whether it’s doing a ritual he barely believed in or setting out for Seattle to stay with his extended family for a while.

Stiles doesn’t have all the information yet, but he has enough to know Peter wants him in his pack. Him, Stiles Stilinski, the guy who’s never even been picked first for sports let alone something as serious as pack.

“My dad got hurt,” Stiles says, hoping there’s enough humanity in Peter to give a shit. “It wasn’t by you, not directly, but all your running around in the woods has been drawing animals out into Beacon Hills instead. A mountain lion got into the school’s parking lot and some idiot ran his car into my dad in the panic. He wasn’t badly hurt, just bruised, but… I can’t let my dad be hurt. None of this can touch my dad again. Or my friends. Promise me that.”

“And in return, you’ll join my pack?”

His lungs are better than they’ve ever been, but for a second Stiles can’t breathe. But Stiles isn’t going to wait around for Peter to try to get him into his pack through threats and attempts to get him to kill his friends. He knew when he and Scott tied that rope around their hands that he’d be taking Scott’s place in Peter’s pack. If this doesn’t work, if he hates it completely… Peter isn’t invincible. It’ll hurt, because Stiles can see so much potential in this scarred, hurting man, but if he’s more madman than man, Stiles will find a way to deal with him. His wolf was right; Stiles doesn’t want it, but he’ll take the red from Peter’s eyes if he has to.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. And then louder, more firmly, “I’ll join your pack, Peter.”

He kind of expects that to be it, but Peter takes Stiles’ left wrist with a look of dark satisfaction. It’s hidden when he raises Stiles’ wrist to his mouth. Stiles suppresses a shiver when Peter presses his mouth to the soft skin of his inner wrist. Insane Alpha, Stiles reminds himself. And a murderer. His wolf chuffs at him, amused. It doesn’t share Stiles’ habit of lying to himself.

“You could’ve asked for more. A few lives is a rather low bargain,” Peter says right before he bites down _hard_.

It hurts, but not as much as the ritual had hurt. Stiles feels as though all the blood in his body is going to flow right out; Peter retracts his bloodied fangs and does the perfectly normal thing of licking the wound he’d made before giving Stiles’ wrist back to him. Peter’s gaze is seriously intense. Stiles feels like little red wolfy hood, maybe even the sexy Halloween costume kind, although Peter doesn’t look like he wants Stiles’ body in particular. Just everything else. No biggie.

“My bite should quicken the pack bond developing between us,” Peter belatedly explains.

The wound knits shut right before Stiles’ eyes. It’s easier to look at his wrist than to look at the triumph in Peter’s eyes. It doesn’t make sense. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Peter smirks, opens his mouth, and, “Don’t you have school to get to?”

Stiles just barely catches his phone when Peter throws it to him, his arm still achy and healing. He glances at the time and crap, Peter’s awful but he’s not a liar. Scott’s going to panic himself into an asthma attack if he shows up and Stiles isn’t there, and his dad has already had so many words with him about his attendance record. And for the moment, Peter seems sort of sane. Stiles doesn’t trust him at all, but he’s more or less sure that if Peter’s going to go out and murder someone between now and three in the afternoon, it’ll at least be someone actually guilty.

“I’m coming back here right after school,” Stiles says. “And you’re going to tell me everything.”

“Don’t bother coming to the hospital. I’ll find you myself, Stiles.”

And with that not at all creepy statement, Peter waves him out of the room.

 

*

 

The high school is utter chaos. Scott keeps shooting Stiles nervous looks they greet each other at the back of their homeroom classroom and for the first time Stiles really gets it. It’s an enclosed space that doesn’t belong to him, which already has his wolf pacing at the back of his head, but worse are the decades of smells clinging to this place. Humans, werewolves, other things Stiles can’t name but can’t call either of the two species he knows for sure are real. For all he knows, Beacon Hills has a whole clan of dragon shifters. The students are all loud and smelly and keep brushing up against him in the hallway. Stiles keeps his hands in his pockets and tries so fucking hard not to snarl at anyone.

“You’re okay?” Scott asks, looking him up and down. “No spontaneous claws?”

“Just once, but I think I’ve got a handle on it,” Stiles says, which is another thing he needs to ask Peter about. His control is a lot better than Scott’s was at this stage. He doesn’t doubt it has something to do with the thing Peter hasn’t told him about. He’s about to tell Scott everything that happened since they’d done the ritual, but Jackson tracks them down minutes after the first bell.

As he comes up to them, Jackson says, “I want to try the ritual again. We must have done something wrong the first time.”

He smells like desperation. Stiles’ wolf likes it in that vicious, spiteful way that Stiles tries not to give into too much. But mostly, it’s just irritating.

“If it failed, it failed,” Stiles tells him. It would’ve been more convenient if the ritual had just worked for Jackson. Rationally, Stiles is fully aware of that. But irrationally, instinctively, his wolf curls around him and thinks hard about biting Jackson for the very idea that it could’ve not existed. “Besides, it’s done. Scott’s not a werewolf anymore.”

Beside him, Scott nods. “I can prove it to you if you want. No healing, no super strength, nothing anymore.”

Stiles continues before Scott can say anything else. “We gave it to Derek’s uncle, you know, Peter Hale? The guy that’s been in a coma all these years? We’re hoping that the bite will help him wake up.”

Jackson looks like he’s going to try to rip their throats out with his very human teeth. (Stiles would love to see him try.) “What the hell, McCall? We had a deal. I need the bite.”

“And what exactly are you going to do about it?” Stiles asks, rolling his eyes. “You can’t blackmail Scott for being a former werewolf.”

Jackson doesn’t take it well, but Stiles doesn’t really give a shit. He didn’t care much about Jackson before all of this and now he knows he can slam Jackson against the wall without any effort at all. Jackson isn’t worth it. He’s a pain in the ass and if he starts trying to get at Peter, Stiles will deal with him so the idiot doesn’t get himself killed, but until then he isn’t worth the attention. It’s somewhat disturbing how little his wolf cares about anyone except for Scott and his dad and Peter. Even Lydia, who Stiles the human adores, doesn’t factor into the wolf’s mind. It doesn’t see her as worth the effort. She doesn’t value him, so the wolf doesn’t value her. Pragmatism at its finest.

The wolf’s priorities are Stiles, then Stiles’ dad, then Scott, then Peter. If Peter ends up being a good Alpha, Stiles has no doubt that his ranking will rise a notch in Stiles’ lizard brain. Stiles makes a mental note to keep track of that, because his wolf is rather good at rushing into things and is already way too attached to Peter Hale.

As he watches Jackson storm out, Stiles turns to Scott and says, “If Allison’s dad asks, you were on steroids and it was the worst decision of your life and you regret it a lot. He has no proof you were ever a werewolf.”

“ _Bro_.”

“Bro. Rip it off like a bandaid and tell him you’re making up for it by focusing on the things that matter, like the people you love and your education,” Stiles replies. “If he finds out about me being a werewolf, he’ll just assume the Alpha bit me.”

Scott looks like he wants to argue, but he ends up giving in. “Alright. But I’ve only taken one steroid.”

He says it with such a straight face that Stiles wants to smack himself. The Argents are going to find out that Stiles is a werewolf; it’s inevitable, really. Not only because of Scott, but because he doubts he’ll be able to be inconspicuous hanging around Derek and Peter. He just needs the secret to last until Kate’s out of the picture. Chris isn’t great, but at least he doesn’t burn families alive.

Stiles tells Scott the summarized version of everything he’s learned, keeping Peter’s name out of it at his wolf’s insistence. He really has to do something about how much his wolf likes Peter. He also really has to do something about the fact that Stiles doesn’t exactly hate him, either.

The next bell rings before Scott can ask too many questions, so Stiles just him off and tells him he’ll see him at lunch. He spends most of math concentrating on blocking out all the smells and sounds around him and developing a headache. Biology involves trying to subtly pinch his nose at the lingering smells from last month’s frog dissection unit. By economics, he’s mostly gotten the hang of everything except the giant headache. With a lot of reluctance, he comes up to Finstock’s desk after class.

“Stilinski! Ready for the game?”

“About that, Coach…” It stings. He’d only just gotten onto first line this month. He hasn’t even played one real game. His dad was even going to come to this one. “I have to quit the team. I’m sorry.”

Finstock gapes at him. “I’ve heard this just a few weeks ago from McCall. Are you two trying to sabotage our team? You can’t quit unless you have a very good reason and you don’t look like you’re on the verge of death. Is it meth? Is that it? I couldn’t figure out if McCall was having a sexuality crisis or if it was drugs.”

Stiles doesn’t even know what to say to that. “It’s not meth and I had my sexuality crisis ages ago.” Now he just has a werewolf crisis. “I just need to concentrate on my schoolwork. I’m nearly failing chemistry.”

“Everyone’s nearly failing chemistry, that’s no reason to quit the team,” Finstock scoffs.

“It is to my dad,” Stiles says, trying to look put out about it. “He’s really upset with me, but he said if I pull my grades up, I can play next year.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Stilinski,” Finstock says, shaking his head, but he accepts the excuse.

Stiles just really hopes his coach doesn’t talk to his dad. He can just imagine how that conversation would go. He’ll think of a suitable lie to tell his dad later, when there aren’t fifteen other things he has to do and a crushing headache pounding at his brain. Instead of being bothered by the pain, his wolf is only pacing excitedly, which doesn’t diffuse Stiles’ worry. Dammit, it would’ve been so much easier if Jackson had been able to do the ritual. Jackson would’ve gotten himself killed by the Argents within weeks and Stiles wouldn’t have had to quit _first line_. His and his dad’s lives are infinitely more important than playing a sport, but still.

He all but stomps his way to his next class, then goes for his and Scott’s usual table in the cafeteria. Scott saved him a seat next to him, but Allison’s on his other side, and half the popular clique surrounds them. Stiles is honestly relieved. Everything is so hectic that he doesn’t know how to talk to Scott about it. Now he has a good reason not to.

Stiles sits down next to Scott and wiggles his eyebrows over in Allison’s direction. “I see there’ve been new developments.”

Scott grins at him in a way Stiles hasn’t seen in a long while. There’s no hint of fear in Scott’s eyes, no worry about Allison’s family or about accidentally hurting Allison. “We’re back together!”

Lydia shoots a look at him from Allison’s other side. “She took pity on you, that’s all.”

Allison sighs at the both of them, but she can’t keep the smile from her lips. “Maybe just a little.”

“I had an asthma attack in the middle of gym and didn’t have my inhaler,” Scott explains to Stiles, sharing a fond look with Allison. “Allison took me to the nurse and stayed with me. We started talking and she said she’d give me another chance.”

“Only if you’re honest with me from now on,” Allison cuts in.

“I promise,” Scott tells her.

Stiles is relieved when he realizes he can hear the lie in Scott’s heartbeat. So that’s what Derek had been talking about earlier. It’s not as simple as his heart simply skipping a beat with the lie. The beat of Scott’s heart gets thrown off at the lie, but it’s in combination with everything else Stiles can feel from him. Deception has a noticeable scent. So does guilt, and so does love. Stiles pats Scott’s leg under the table in thanks. He stays for most of the lunch period, his attention divided between his headache, Scott’s attempts to not spend the entire period focused on Allison, and his own occasional attempts to get Lydia’s attention. He tries twice before he’s just forced to give into the fact that every enhanced sense he has is telling him that she’s just not interested. Lydia doesn’t hate him; she just doesn’t care about him. It aches, but it’s less of a let-down that Stiles would’ve expected it to be. He’s had to face so many hard truths over the past weeks and his feelings for Lydia aren’t life and death. It probably helps that he can feel his wolf nudging him along the path of practicality.

He leaves lunch early, saying he has to talk to Finstock about something, and turns a few corners to get to a less used area of the school. His head feels like it’s going to explode; his wolf feels like it’s doing backflips on every one of Stiles’ aching nerves. Stiles considers whether going to the nurse for some Advil would help. Maybe if he takes ten…

Stiles’ claws shoot out, prickling at his temples as he groans through the pain. His wolf is howling, howling, howling—

And then it’s joined by another howl. It’s all in his head, but it feels so real that it makes his head spin. He knows the other wolf; his own wolf does too, bounding between Stiles’ end of the connection and their Alpha’s. Stiles can only catch glimpses of Peter’s wolf through the bond, dark fur and red eyes and _power_. Fuck, Stiles can feel it through the bond, but it’s more exhilarating than terrifying. Peter’s wolf doesn’t snarl at Stiles’ own, bigger and badder as it is. They meet as pack, real pack, and if this is what Peter used to have with his family, Stiles understands how easy it would’ve been to go mad with the loss of such a bond. Distantly, he can feel Peter himself, unhurt except for the minuscule ache of the top layer of his skin on his right side.

It’s easier to ignore the bond than it had been the headache, which is gone completely now. It’s a comforting presence in the back of his mind, quiet until Stiles—or Peter, he assumes—has need of it. Stiles gets through the rest of the day without trying to kill anyone and pats himself on the back for it. No murder on his conscience yet. His wolf finds the concept of murder weighing down a conscience amusing, but Stiles flicks it on the nose. Bad instincts. Very bad instincts.

Scott finds him by his locker at the end of the day. “Ready for lacrosse practice? It’s going to be great, you’ll see.”

“Sorry, I decided to quit,” Stiles says, shrugging and trying not to care. He knows deliberately holding back and working hard to control himself every second would be hell. It’s bullshit, okay, but being practical now actually hurts. He likes lacrosse. He’d waited a whole year and a half to do anything other than warm the bench. But if he lets on on how he feels, he knows Scott will do his best to keep Stiles on the field— _hey, it didn_ _’t go that badly for me, right?_ —and Stiles doesn’t need more problems. “I want to work on our furry little problem first. Maybe next year, alright?”

“Is that a Harry Potter reference?” Scott asks, rolling his eyes.

“I’m going to be making references all over the place now, deal with it,” Stiles replies with a grin. “Besides, lacrosse was never my thing anyway. And I wouldn’t want to steal your show.”

“But I’m going to suck now,” Scott says. He looks like someone punched him in the heart. Oh, Scottie boy.

“You spent all of break training for this,” Stiles assures him. “Remember? You did push-ups and pull-ups like mad, ran with your inhaler on a loop around your neck, and we spent hours working on your reflexes. Sure, you’ll need to start training again, but all that happened built on what was already there. Also, you can’t possibly let Jackson be better than you again.”

“He would be so smug.”

“Unbearably smug,” Stiles says, nodding.

Scott bumps his shoulder against Stiles’ as they walk down the hall. “Thanks, Stiles.”


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles doesn’t bother with waiting for Peter to find him. He gets into his Jeep and skips the turn toward his house, driving on instinct and following Peter’s presence on the other end of the bond. The bond isn’t kind enough to give him street directions; it only points him in Peter’s direction like a compass pointing north. Stiles turns around three times before he realizes where he’s being led.

The parking lot is empty, leaving Stiles with his pick of spots. He exits slowly, his footsteps quiet on the gravel path. There’s no one here except the heartbeat and scent Stiles already knows to recognize as his Alpha’s. He passes the rows of gravestones with only a glace in the direction of his mom’s and grandmom’s. It’s always felt morbid, but the spot next to his mom’s has been empty ever since she was lowered into the ground. Bought and waiting for his dad. Stiles used to have nightmares of being pushed into it instead. Further on, there’s a large memorial stone to commemorate the Hale fire and smaller markers for the individual members who died. They’re mostly ceremonial; the fire had burned so hot that it had been hard to distinguish one family member from another.

Peter’s standing in front of Cora Hale’s grave marker. Stiles comes to a stop next to him without bothering with words.

“Talia often told me I shouldn’t have favorites,” Peter eventually says. “But that’s ridiculous. She had enough of them that my sister Cathy and I could choose our favorites to spring gifts and surprise trips on. Neither she nor I wanted any of our own, so our sister’s brats were enough. Cora was a tornado disguised as a werewolf. She was ten.”

“I remember her,” Stiles says, his gaze on the stone marker. There’s nothing but her name and two dates; the generic funeral words are all on the memorial stone. “She bit Jackson in the shoulder so hard he needed stitches. Got suspended, but Jackson didn’t bully a single person for the rest of elementary school.” John had sternly told him not to follow her example no matter how much he hated Jackson, but Stiles just gave her a chocolate bar as thanks.

“Talia sent her over to me for her suspension, said maybe I could explain things like _secrecy_ and _we do not bite humans_ to her in a way her parents couldn’t seem to get into her head.”

“Did you?”

“We spent a lot of time at the zoo and my animal kingdom comparisons probably didn’t help much,” Peter says, sounding fond anyway. “She was a good kid. Cathy got the oldest and youngest to play aunt with, but she got the short end of the stick.”

“And you got Cora… and Derek,” Stiles adds. It makes sense of why despite Peter’s deep anger Derek’s blood isn’t already on Peter’s claws. “You should tell him the truth,” Stiles says, then amends his words to, “Some of the truth, anyway. We could use his help when we go against Kate.”

“I could simply make another beta.” His tone is too innocent to be serious.

Stiles rolls his eyes, looking up from the grave marker to see Peter already watching him. “Someone who’s so green they’ll be tripping over their claws for a week?”

“Canon-fodder,” Peter says with a smirk, turning around and walking toward the parking lot.

 _Kindling,_ Stiles thinks, and cringes. Nope, he’s not saying it. A few long steps and he’s walking beside Peter. “Where are we going?”

Peter takes the passenger seat of Stiles’ seat without answering. Once Stiles is in the car, Peter turns to him and says, “Show me your shift.”

Stiles looks around, but there’s no one there but the two of them. If ghosts are real along with werewolves, he doesn’t see any. It’s as easy as breathing to shift to his beta form. He can see his claws pop out and can feel the fur coming up on the sides of his face. His sense of smell feels a thousand times more sensitive in this form. The scents of earth and nature and the gas inside his car and the apple core somewhere under his seat distract him, but only for a moment. It’s hard to be distracted when his Alpha is right there. His wolf is closer to the surface in this form. It strains forward and Stiles goes with only a little hesitation. Peter’s not going to laugh at him; at worst, he’ll just be overly smug, and his wolf doesn’t care about pride.

Stiles had thought he’d imaged it last night, but no. Running his nose across the line of Peter’s neck, scenting him, is the best feeling in the world. Peter smells like man, wolf, comfort, home. He smells of power and strength, surety settled in his skin. Stiles all but turns into a puddle when Peter does the same in return. He blames it on his wolf, and that’s mostly it, but he doesn’t think he would’ve been able to feel nothing even as a human.

“My sweet beta,” Peter says, nipping Stiles’ jaw before he lets go.

Stiles’ skin is still warm in every place Peter touched. He immediately shifts back, feeling embarrassed about the whole thing. “That was just instinct.”

“You have good instincts,” Peter tells him. “You’ll need to use them. Drive toward the preserve. It’s where Kate is holding Derek captive.”

“She’s _what_?” Stiles yells even as he’s jamming his keys in their slot and shifting gears. His Jeep makes a sharp sound at the way he jams on the gas to get them out of the parking lot. Stiles pats his baby’s dashboard and mentally tells her it’s no time to break down. Derek’s a dick, but he doesn’t want him dead. “And instead of telling me earlier like a normal person, you decided to hang around the graveyard? She could be killing him already!”

“She still needs him,” Peter tells him, his voice infuriatingly even. “Derek is the only link she has to who she really wants. She’s counting on the Alpha coming to save him.”

“Which you _are_.” Stiles swallows down his anger. “Is this enough torture for you to forget Derek’s role in the past even if you can’t forgive him? Because you can’t be his Alpha and go around letting him be tortured by hunters.”

“I’m his uncle, not his Alpha,” Peter corrects. “Our pack bond withered away in the years after the fire.” At Stiles’ unimpressed look, he adds, “I didn’t realize you liked him so much that you wanted him in our pack.”

“Derek is a growly, pushy dick who couldn’t give me and Scott some clear answers even when his life depended on it.” He and Scott had wasted so much time trying to figure things out on their own. And yet… “But the entire time I’ve known him, he’s been grieving his sister _who you killed_. She was a shitty Alpha to you, but she was good to him, and he came back to a town he hasn’t been in since his family died only to bury her. He’s not Kate, alright?” While he has his chance, Stiles adds, “Neither are Allison or her parents.”

“As far as we know.”

“If you haven’t found proof of Chris and Victoria being involved yet, then they weren’t,” Stiles says. He trusts his dad’s research and Peter’s initial findings. “You can’t judge them based on things they haven’t done.”

“You’re entirely too reasonable.” With a put-upon sigh, Peter adds, “I blame your upbringing as a cop’s kid.”

Stiles takes his right hand off the wheel just to flip him off. “I’m literally about to murder someone with you. Be grateful for that much.”

Peter takes his hand, threading their fingers together as he lowers it to the space between their seats. His grip is loose, but Stiles’ concentration is still split between the road and every point his skin touches Peter’s.

“I _am_ grateful,” Peter says. “I chose Scott with the surge of power through my veins and the light of the full moon on my back. As much as I tried to reconcile my choice later, I couldn’t. He’s not the one I wanted. And then you corrected my mistake and chose me in turn in a set of specific and enormously rare circumstances. I’m keeping you Stiles, and that’s a decision you won’t be able to correct unless you tear your fangs through my throat.”

“I’d do it,” Stiles says, but he tightens his grip around Peter’s hand not to hurt him but to have more of him. “If you give me a reason. You had your moment of madness and I don’t give a shit about Kate, but it has to stop there.”

“And that’s one of the reasons why you’re infinitely more useful than Scott.”

“I still haven’t forgotten your lack of explanations about this _enormously rare circumstance_ , but Derek’s life is more important than my curiosity.” Probably. Definitely. Stiles scowls at the road and adds another five miles to his speed. First Derek, then answers, then… His wolf has ideas for what happens then, but Stiles bats it away.

They park the car far enough from the Hale house to neither be seen nor heard and discreetly make their way forward. Stiles shifts as soon as he steps out of the car. He’s not used to his senses yet, but his wolf is so close to the skin that Stiles can almost feel its wet nose. It guides him in listening for heartbeats and ignoring background sounds and smells. Stiles presses his claws against his palms and tries to imagine using them on a human being. It’s not the murder part that has him so freaked out. Stiles has pretty much accepted it that Kate Argent is going to die. He doesn’t have any regrets on that part. What worries him is that it’s not as though extensive martial arts training is something he osmosed through his lycanthropy. He’s still Stiles Stilinski, all around klutz who has some self-defense training but not enough to take down a hunter.

“Four heartbeats,” Stiles says, his own heart beating loudly in his chest. They’ve circled the Hale house, locating the three people inside. Kate is monologuing to Derek in the basement while two hunters are keeping watch upstairs by sitting back and talking about the newest Halo game. Stiles wishes they would talk about how many innocent werewolves they’ve killed instead of about Stiles’ favorite game. It would be easier on his conscience that way.

Peter rests a hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “Stop worrying. The only hunters she was able to sway were inexperienced idiots without a strategic thought in their heads.”

“Right, yeah.” Stiles tries to absorb that information and, “Still worried.”

“Trust that I have too much invested in you to allow you to be killed,” Peter says. “You will live through this.”

Before he turns around, Stiles tells him, “Same to you. Seriously. Don’t die.”

He wants answers out of Peter. (He wants to be near his Alpha again. He wants to see Peter happy instead of determined and vengeful. He wants his wolf to stop being an idiot.) Peter isn’t allowed to die any more than Stiles is.

The car is just where he’d left it. Stiles puts his claws away and blasts the radio on. He drives slowly, bobbing his head with the music as the Hale house comes into view. One of the hunters walks out of the house. He’s only a few steps from the doorway, but it’s enough.

“This is private property,” the hunter calls. “Get out.”

It’s so reminiscent of his first meeting with Derek that Stiles wants to punch the asshole’s teeth out. Instead, he just yells over the music, “Where am I supposed to smoke then?”

“You’re—”

Whatever he was going to say, he doesn’t finish it. Peter is a blur as he tackles the hunter to the ground and rips his throat out. His Alpha form is as terrifying as it was when he’d chased Stiles and his friends through the high school. Stiles assures his lizard brain that Peter’s teeth aren’t gonna go near his throat unless he wants them to as he ducks out of the car. It’s just in time, the second hunter having started shooting from inside the house. The hunter’s attention is on the too-fast dark mass that keeps flitting around, and Stiles takes the opportunity to slide through the tunnel he’d conveniently parked close to.

It’s dark and musty, but there’s no sign of Kate making her escape.

If his Jeep gets hurt, Stiles is gonna… Well, he’s gonna hope Peter’s teeth are as sharp as they look.

A moment later, all sounds from above stop. Stiles’ claws are out, his steps careful as he makes his way to the Hale basement. He peeks through a hole in the panel between the tunnel and the basement. Instead of finding Kate and Derek there, he catches a glimpse of Kate’s back as she vanishes up the stairs. Stiles slides the panel back, trying not to cough from the overwhelming amount of ash. His sensitive hearing picks up Peter asking if Kate expects that gun to be of any use against an Alpha.

Derek is chained to a metal stand, snarling as he tries to break away. It takes him a few moments to register Stiles’ presence and whip his head around. At least he keeps his voice quiet as he says, “ _Stiles_?”

“Hey- _ow_.” Stiles shakes his foot out after a nail nearly goes through his sneakers. This whole house is trying to kill him. “How’s it hanging?”

Derek bares his teeth at him, then looks startled when Stiles does the same in return. “You were bitten?”

“Not exactly. It was your idea, anyway.” He removes the clasps connecting Derek to the electric generator, trying to be as careful as possible in the limited time he has. Derek is shirtless and bloody, which Stiles isn’t going to think about now because if he gets any angrier his head will pop off, drill through the ceiling, and blow a hole through Kate.

“The ritual actually worked?”

“Scott’s as human as they come now,” Stiles agrees as he undoes the last of Derek’s bindings. “Quick catchup: your uncle Peter’s the Alpha—” his wolf pokes his paw out at that “— _my_ Alpha, and he’s upstairs with Kate. More explanations later, alright?”

“I’m going to kill her,” Derek promises, striding toward the stairs. He doesn’t look back as he says, “Thanks, Stiles.”

Stiles follows him up the basement stairs to find Peter and Kate in a standoff and Kate with more ammunition.

“Are you really going to stand with the man who killed your sister?” she asks. Up close, Stiles can almost see why Derek fell head over heels for her as a dumb teenager. She has a hot, ultra-competent, evil kind of vibe that reminds him of Lydia on her worst days. Her gun is pointed at Peter, who doesn’t seem worried about it.

Rather, he eyes Derek’s shifted form. “Against the woman who killed the rest of our family? I rather think he will.”

Derek scowls at him. “Until she’s dead anyway.”

“Thank you, nephew.”

“I’ll tear out your throat afterward.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“And you?” Kate asks, raising an eyebrow at Stiles. “You aren’t the one I expected to see—”

“—I’m full of surprises—”

“—but you’re willing to stand with the Alpha who mauled you?”

The faint smugness he sees in Peter’s expression should not be so reassuring, but it is. His wolf is thrilled to know its Alpha accepts Stiles, that it’s not done grudgingly but with pride and returned loyalty. Whatever his reasons, Peter wants him, and Stiles can’t deny that he wants to be right here. He won’t share his wolf or his place in Peter’s pack with Scott; this is his alone.

“I’m right where I’m supposed to be,” Stiles tells her.

A second later, he’d ducking back down the stairs as Kate starts shooting, obviously having realized that the only thing that could splinter their group is her own death. Peter’s roaring and Stiles feels the call in his bones. His way clear now, he jumps out to add a strike before Derek or Peter leaves the killing blow. Three werewolves against a hunter who’s almost out of bullets isn’t going to Kate’s way. Her latest bullet doesn’t even hit near any of them, going through one of the already bullet-ridden posts instead. Stiles startles as the house wavers around them.

Kate’s closest to the doorway. She only has to take a step back before she can safely say, “You are, all of you,” an unholy joy in her eyes.

Werewolf speed isn’t enough. Stiles leaps toward a window, but still gets caught as the house crumbles around atop all three of them. It would’ve killed him were he human, and even as a werewolf it’s too much.

Stiles blacks out and it must’ve only been for a second because the next thing he knows, someone steps on the wooden plank over his head. Stiles can’t help his startled, pained noise, but when the plank is lifted, it’s not either of the people he wants to see.

“You may not be a Hale, but you have that same cockroach-like obstinacy,” Kate says. She turns away for a few moments.

Stiles has enough time to force himself to think through the pain about how much blood a werewolf can lose and live, and how much he’s already lost. His whole body feels like one big aching wound. He broke his arm once as a kid, but that pain was nothing on this. His wolf is howling at the back of his head and it won’t stop, it _can’t_ seem to stop.

“Don’t,” Stiles manages to get out as Kate approaches with a smaller plank. The perfect size for easing Stiles into death. She must be out of bullets.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he’s going to be beaten to death in the remains of a house that’s basically a graveyard with all the death that’s happened here. The ash is filled with the remains of the Hales who died six years ago, Laura was reburied only feet away, and Stiles can’t tell if there are another two heartbeats in the rubble. There’s only pain and trying to breathe and a madwoman coming closer.

He’s terrified and hurt, but at the same time there’s anger bubbling under Stiles’ skin. It’s red and hot, not Alpha-red but something else. He’s never been an angel. Stiles will be the first to admit it. But he doesn’t deserve a death in this fucking house just when he finally found somewhere to belong. He wants the future his wolf had imagined, running with his Alpha and curling into Peter and kissing that stupid smirk of his and continuing to be alive. He’d hated Kate on Peter and Derek’s behalf, because no matter what the Hale fire hadn’t been a tragedy for him personally, but now he hates her with a passion that’s entirely his own. Kate Argent is a monster. There shouldn’t be a piece left of her in this world and yet she’s going to drive away—his baby is right there, she might even steal his Jeep, and that shouldn’t be important when she might steal his life, but Stiles can’t get over the tragedy of her driving his mom’s Jeep—and live after snuffing out so many people.

He wants her to die. He wants her to suffer as she’s made so many people suffer. He wants it so fucking much that—

Something inside him breaks, and the wolf goes silent for the first time since Stiles woke up. Kate’s saying something, maybe one last taunt, but Stiles doesn’t give a shit because there’s fire instead of pain in his veins. It’s comfort instead of fear, warmth instead of heat.

It’s _I’m going to live_ , and it’s Kate becoming enveloped in flames before his eyes.

 _Enormously rare circumstance_ , Stiles thinks, Peter’s voice resounding in his head. He hopes to god Peter’s alive for him to yell at him for the lack of warning. He climbs out of the wreckage easily, the wood keeping him from moving turning to ash. His wolf stalks with him as Stiles approaches Kate. She’s not screaming anymore. There’s no life in her to even scream. Standing above her charred body, all Stiles can feel is relief. He’s killed a human being in a horrible way. Maybe later, when he cleans the ash and blood off of himself, he’ll feel guilt, but right now he’s turning away and leaving her behind him. He already sees Derek, who’s pained and bloody but was able to get himself out of the rubble. Stiles doesn’t have the energy to speak. He makes his way to the spot where he hears a faint heartbeat. His footsteps leave new ash in their wake.

Peter’s alive, but his heartbeat is all wrong and Stiles can see why as he pulls him out of the rubble. A large plank speared through his stomach in the collapse. Stiles can’t tell if pulling it out of him will make it better or worse. Peter’s presence is so faint through their bond. His eyes won’t open.

Derek approaches and beneath the ash, Stiles can smell his anger and determination.

“Keep your claws in,” Stiles says, his voice hoarse. The inside of his mouth tastes like ash. “I’ve already burned one person alive today.”

“Someone has to be the Alpha,” Derek says. “This is Hale land. It should be me.”

“Someone’s already the Alpha,” Stiles reminds him. He knows down to his bones that if Peter dies right now, his Alpha power will pass to Stiles. For all that Stiles knows he can be an Alpha if he wants, he knows he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want Derek to have it either.

“He’s all but dead already.” Derek stands next to him, not moving further even though his hands are clenched into fists. “He killed my sister.”

“I know,” Stiles says, because he can’t say, _and it was an accident,_ or _he didn’t mean to,_ or _he regrets it_.

Derek drops down to his knees next to Stiles, his whole body tight. “He blamed her, didn’t he? And me.”

“He blames himself, too,” Stiles says, his voice quiet. Not as much for Laura’s death, but the way Peter had talked about the whole sorry tale of that summer six years ago, he blamed himself for not noticing. He’d been an adult, alert for danger with all the others. There’s so much blame to go around, rooted in anger and guilt and shame. The Hale family tragedy, and Stiles has willingly stepped into it. He’s such an idiot. Stiles takes Derek’s hand and instinctively lets the fire flow out of him again, this time to heal rather than to hurt. He can’t do anything about Derek’s mind, but he can help his body. “If there’s anyone to blame, it’s Kate for lighting the first match. The fire… it changed Peter from the man he used to be.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier,” Derek says. After a few long moments, he says, “He was a good uncle—my favorite one—but he’s never going to be that man again.”

After the fire, Laura, everything… “No, but maybe one day he could get close.”

Derek nods, and with one motion he stands up and turns around. “Tell him—I don’t know. Tell him I need time.”

“I will,” Stiles promises.

As Derek walks away, Stiles reaches over to take Peter’s hand in his. He’s caught between the powerful fire licking at his skin and the snarling of his wolf inside his head. His heart beats twice for every one of Peter’s beats. As fire travels from Stiles’ hands and lights his Alpha ablaze, all instinct and panic, Stiles grips him tightly. His fire knows with bone-deep surety that this is a man to cleanse and heal rather than burn. _You’re not allowed to die,_ Stiles thinks, and he’s thought that before. It hadn’t helped any with his mom, but back then he hadn’t had fire in his veins and a howl stuck in his throat. Actual words have never been further from his lips. He’s never been one for silence, even when it would’ve been better to just keep his mouth shut, but there’s no sound as Stiles shakes with the effort to keep the fire burning. Peter’s smaller wounds have already healed, but most of Stiles’ concentration is toward the one that’s life-threatening even for a werewolf.

Tiredness creeps up on him. The flames are hypnotizing in their movement, taking up Stiles’ half-lidded gaze until they’re all he can see. He doesn’t register the way Peter’s eyes open or that the man’s wounds have healed completely. It’s only when Peter’s hand tugs at Stiles’ that he realizes Peter is actually awake. And alive. And—

“You’re not even surprised,” Stiles says, his words coming out quieter than he’d intended for them to. It’s hard to think with the way he has to will the fire to vanish. It almost doesn’t listen to him—Stiles’ imagination comes up with terrible visions of accidentally starting a forest fire—but after some forceful growls from his wolf, it quiets down. It’s no longer visible, but Stiles can still feel it under his skin, just as he can feel his wolf.

“Kate? Derek?”

“Dead,” Stiles says with a lift of his chin toward her charred form. “Derek left.”

Peter sits up, moving slowly at first as he rubs the patch newly-grown skin on his skin. He spares a glance toward Kate, but most of his attention is on Stiles. There’s pride in those blue eyes, satisfaction, but more than that, there’s something like the fire bubbling under Stiles’ skin. Peter looks at him like he wants to devour him. “I didn’t know the form it would take, but there’s so much fire in you that I shouldn’t have thought it could be anything else.”

“It?” Stiles asks. But he knows, because there’s not much it can be. Maybe it has another name, but it’s still—

“Power over the elements, over life, and over death,” Peter finally says. It’s not reluctance that colors his voice. It’s want.

Stiles knows it well. He’s sick of denying how much both his wolf and he himself both want this man, and for the first time in his life, someone’s actually returning his interest. Peter had already been captivating before, but when he’d turned back to human from his Alpha form, the scars on the side of his face were gone. Peter’s so close, so alive, and Stiles could so easily bring himself closer. The only thing that stays his movement is unease over whether it’s Stiles that has Peter so riveted or Stiles’ newfound powers. He rocks back on instead of forward, standing up and tugging Peter up with him. “I have about a thousand and two questions. Actually, that’s probably a low estimate. Let’s go with two thousand to be safe.”

“I’ll answer them,” Peter promises. “But it won’t be while we’re standing in the crumbled remains of my family’s home and a suspicious corpse next to us.”

“The police finding us here would put a damper on things.” Stiles looks around, knowing his dad isn’t going to pop out from behind a tree but still needing to check. “What are we going to say? I figure you’re not gonna go the path of remaining a missing hospital patient.”

“A story that has only a few threads of truth,” Peter replies. The moment may have passed, but he’s still holding onto Stiles’ hand, his grip tight. “Kate isn’t alive to contest me blaming the murders on her, and the rest of the Argents won’t be in a position to argue once I give my side of the story.”

“Innocent, traumatized, formerly comatose Peter Hale?” Stiles asks with a bit of a huff. He can see it, Peter charming anyone who asks into believing Kate had been the devil.

“How could anyone doubt me?” Peter’s smirk is too tired to be properly charming, but that’ll only add to the effect.

Some more tiredness enters his expression as Stiles tells him what Derek had said. Because Stiles is unable to not stick his nose everywhere, he makes sure to add that it’s probably for the best. The two remaining Hales need time apart. Maybe one day, anger won’t be the dominant emotion the both of them feel toward each other, but it won’t be soon. Stiles walks with Peter out of the wreckage, approaching the Jeep and checking to make sure it hadn’t been damaged in the earlier chaos. When he looks back at Peter, Stiles realizes that there’s a part of the plan that won’t stand up to a second’s scrutiny. Kate hadn’t been a plastic surgeon capable of miraculous feats.

When Peter sees where Stiles’ gaze has fallen, he inclines his head. “It would help sell the story.”

Stiles struggles not to shudder at the thought of going that far. He rests his hand against the right side of Peter’s face. “It won’t hurt much.” He won’t let it. His wolf would stomp the fire right out if it considered hurting their Alpha without cause.

“Even if it does, after six years of pain, I have a rather high threshold,” Peter replies. His blue eyes are set on Stiles’, clear and certain. “There will be enough holes to stumble over if we’re not careful with our words. I don’t want to be labeled an impostor on top of everything.”

“If you say so,” Stiles says. He waits for a moment for Peter to regret his decision, but his Alpha continues to be an idiot.

Peter doesn’t flinch away from Stiles’ hand when it lights up with flames. Stiles keeps to the very top layer of Peter’s skin, mimicking the burn scars as best as he can from memory. It won’t be perfect, but very few people would’ve paid much attention to the exact configuration of Peter’s burns. There’s a grimace tugging at Peter’s lips, but it’s more discomfort than pain. At least some of it is the way Stiles’ fire calls up Peter’s bad memories, but Stiles can’t help that. He can only continue, leaving Peter once again scarred. When it’s done, Stiles’ thumb slips down to graze over Peter’s lips for one tiny moment. He still wants him, this mad, undaunted man.

“How do I look?” Peter asks as though he can’t see the way Stiles looks at him.

Maybe he can’t, because there’s a touch of uncertainty to Peter’s expression. Whether it’s over their plan or over the way the scars mar his handsome face again, Stiles doesn’t know. He just says, “Like you can take on the world,” without a hint of a lie in the beat of his heart.

 

*

 

As far as anyone is concerned, neither Stiles nor his Jeep were anywhere near crazed killer Kate Argent’s final stand. The town’s rumor mill explodes when the long-comatose Peter Hale stumbles out of the Beacon Hills preserve, shivering with the cold and stumbling over his words in a panic as he reveals an almost unbelievable story. There’d been a long-standing grudge between the Hale and Argent families, Peter explained to the sheriff and his deputies, and combined with Kate’s unstable mental state, the spark had been lit. Six years later, Kate returned to Beacon Hills after receiving the blackmailing letter conveniently found in her car. Instead of forking over the money, she took it upon herself to murder her co-conspirators and Laura, disguising the deaths as animal attacks. Lastly, she went after Peter, who awoke at hearing her voice for the first time in six years, and Derek, who had been lost with grief over his sister’s death.

She decided to torture them in the basement of his burned-down family home out of a twisted nostalgia. Peter had managed to get away and, in a horrible turn of fate, lit her aflame with the same instruments she’d been about to use on him. Horrified, Peter told the police everything when they arrived: the whole twisted story of Kate seducing Derek six years ago in order to get close to their family and the many people she’d killed since then. When the police were finally able to get in contact with Derek, he confirmed Peter’s story, and said he’d left the scene of the crime because he couldn’t stand to be in Beacon Hills for a second longer.

“It still doesn’t feel like the whole truth,” John says, even after he’s submitted his report and the news has run the story a dozen times.

Stiles just shrugs and gives him a hug. “You did your best. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”

“When did you get so wise, kid,” John replies, his arms tightening around Stiles.

His wolf is content with his dad remaining unhurt. It doesn’t concern itself with John’s emotional state, reminding Stiles that John will bounce back as he always does. Soon enough the sheriff will be charging into danger himself and causing Stiles to tear his hair out in frustration. The Hale fire and the deaths six years later will be forgotten by the regular people of Beacon Hills. Even his dad will eventually let the case go.

Stiles hasn’t seen Peter in a while and the urge to lay eyes on him itches at him, but he isn’t going to crash his dad’s investigation or break into the hospital where they’re on high alert for any possible remaining co-conspirators. In the meantime, he goes to school. He channels his frustration into succeeding at beating Lydia’s scores in two classes. Lydia’s look of intrigued surprise is fun, but it doesn’t send those familiar flutters through Stiles’ heart.

Scott takes his attempts to be normal up a hundred notches every time Stiles looks away from him. He has Allison back now and he’s still co-captain of the lacrosse team, but he’s there more out of sheer determination than wolfy reflexes. He and Jackson even seem to be getting along now that Scott has ceased being competition for him. With less distractions and Harris having quit, Scott’s grades aren’t even all that bad now.

They’re still best friends. They’re always going to be. But the supernatural side of the world has become something like a bad dream for Scott these days, and Stiles doesn’t try to drag him back. Scott hadn’t been meant for this world.

Stiles, though?

Stiles can’t bring himself to regret a single thing.

It takes a full two weeks for him to finally get Peter alone in a secure location. Stiles tells his dad he’s going to Scott’s and drives to Peter’s speedily acquired apartment. Peter been able to rent it after (probably shadily) getting his access to his bank accounts restored and reinstated as co-executor of the Hale trust, as set by Talia’s will.

Peter’s already leaning against the door frame when Stiles gets to the second floor, looking unfairly attractive even with the scars on the right side of his face. Stiles’ wolf makes a low, happy noise that’s probably the closest a wolf can get to a purr. Their Alpha is alive and content, his scars only temporary marks left by Stiles himself.

“You haven’t healed them yet?” Stiles asks as he gets within reach of Peter. Peter steps aside to let him into the apartment, but Stiles still brushes up against him as he enters, catching some more of Peter’s scent. “I thought you’d do it as soon as the police finished their investigation.”

“I can deal with them for a short while until I vanish for a week with the excuse of getting extensive plastic surgery.”

Peter’s eyes have a glint of amusement that has Stiles asking, “Where will you actually go?” He drops into one of the stools at the kitchen island. Across from him, Peter’s plate of pancakes is unfinished, and another one slides over to Stiles, who wonders if Peter had been expecting him or if he should just always make sure to time his visits when Peter’s eating brunch. A man who spent six years comatose should not cook so well, dammit. (Stiles tries his damnedest not to think about licking that same syrup off of Peter’s skin.)

“A week of sitting back on a beach in the Caribbean is exactly what I need after being in this town for too long,” Peter tells him. With a bit of a smirk, he says, “I’m leaving the week of April 22nd.”

Stiles wonders for a moment if being a werewolf means he doesn’t have to worry about sunburn and skin cancer before he nearly chokes on his pancakes as he realizes why that date sounds familiar. With too much interest in his voice, Stiles says, “You’re such a creep.”

“Does that mean you’re not interested?”

“Explanations first, then you can continue bribing me.” It’s rare that he’s been able to go on a proper vacation. Ever since his mom died, there haven’t been any trips out of the country. So if Peter wants to plan out Stiles’ spring break, Stiles won’t object.

“I prefer to put it as stacking the odds in my favor.”

“They’re already in your favor,” Stiles says with a roll of his eyes. “You know that, right? I wouldn’t have helped you or healed you otherwise. I don’t completely trust you and I don’t think you’re back to full sanity yet, but I’m on your side.”

“I gathered,” Peter replies, but the quirk to his lips isn’t a smirk. “Thank you, Stiles.” Setting his silverware down, Peter begins with, “That ritual you and Scott performed came to Derek through a book of werewolf fairy tales Talia read to him as a child.”

“What?” Stiles said, the words not truly penetrating. “No, it was real, I know it was. I wouldn’t be a werewolf otherwise.”

“A werewolf prince lay dying on the battlefield in the midst of the deciding battle between his kingdom and another’s. His generals gathered around him, losing hope in ever winning their war, until he called his fiercest general to him. She had served by his side for decades and the two of them knew each other’s souls as well as their own. He bound their bloodied and bruised hands together with a piece of twine and asked his general to fight in his stead, to be everything he could have, should have been. His general readily agreed, and when she next opened her eyes, they glowed with the prince’s strength. But when the prince’s strength was not enough and the invading army was simply too large to defeat with teeth and claws, she called upon a greater power and unleashed a storm on the invaders, and lightening only hit those who wished her people harm. She became the first wolf-mage to walk this earth.”

“Let me guess, she was your dozen-greats great-grandmother?”

“She was a fairytale,” Peter said. “Or so I always thought. There are two other recorded instances of the ritual succeeding—the most recent being five hundred years ago—but I never put much faith in those stories. Those circumstances have been attempted to be recreated and all sorts of variations in the legend have formed, but none have been successful.” A dramatic pause, because Peter’s definitely one of those guys. “Until you.”

“It’s like saying Bloody Mary three times in the mirror, isn’t it,” Stiles mutters, rubbing at his face. He doesn’t even know what the hell to do with Peter’s words. His wolf accepts the explanation easily, knowing full well that the both of them are special, but Stiles is gobsmacked. “Do you think Derek knew it was going to fail?”

“He could have. He _was_ under some stress what with managing my former beta and trying to solve my murders. Perhaps he was trying to buy some time for himself. But there’s also the fact that I doubt Derek met many Bitten werewolves until Scott, and none he would’ve spent an extended amount of time with. For all he knew, there was a slight chance of it working. At least he didn’t go for the more manipulative ‘if a Bitten wolf kills the Alpha who bit them, they become human again’ idea.”

“Another fairytale?” Stiles asks.

“Very much so.”

“During the fight, everything I did was plain instinct,” Stiles says, remembering the tantalizing haze of power that had overtaken him. “I’m scared of burning my house down if I try to use it consciously.”

“I’ll help you control it.” It’s a promise.

“Nice of you,” Stiles mutters. “And then you’ll try to control me.”

“As much as you’ll let me, yes,” Peter agrees, something rather serious in his eyes. He steps off of his stool and walks over to Stiles, who spins around in his seat to face him. He’s not about to run away from this.

Because oh does he get it. “I’m a double-edged sword for you, aren’t I? I can help you achieve more than you could ever get on your own, but I have the power to knock you down if you take too much.” He thinks of how easy this already is, of the way he feels something growing under his skin.

Peter’s so close that Stiles has to lift his chin to meet his gaze. There’s no space between them for him to get up from his stool to avoid Peter’s looming, but neither Stiles nor his wolf feel threatened.

“Is that what you want?” Peter asks, cocking his head. He sounds honestly curious.

Peter’s probably armed with a thousand reasons for Stiles to stay a part of his pack, but Stiles doesn’t need them. _I’d look good in red,_ he remembers, but he doesn’t want the red. He doesn’t need it. Mostly, he just wants Peter to be the man Stiles thinks he could be instead of the madman who’d chased them through the school. He seems saner now, better, and Stiles wonders how much of that is Stiles’ doing. A willing packmate, and one that’s a wolf-mage, whatever the hell that is since Stiles still doesn’t know nearly enough.

“I’ll stay as long as you don’t give me a reason to leave.” And short of Peter going on another murder spree, this time of innocents, or trying to control Stiles, Stiles can’t see himself leaving. But Peter’s not standing this close as his Alpha, nor as a werewolf. He’s a man down to the heat in his eyes. Stiles’ wolf is hungry for him in ways Stiles can’t comprehend, and Stiles himself wants more than anything to throw caution to the wind. Stiles grips the front of Peter’s shirt, tugging him even closer. “If this is just because you think my magic is hot, you need to tell me.” He needs to know now, because Peter can be his Alpha just fine without adding this into the mix.

“Your magic is powerful—”

Stiles’ heart stutters, but Peter rubs his thumb over Stiles’ lip and it stutters for a different, better reason.

“—but it builds on the power you already have. I want you for your magic, your intelligence, your perfectly skewed moral compass, your contradictions, your ruthlessness, your kindness.”

And fuck if Stiles doesn’t want him, too. He tugs Peter down to his level and kisses him the way he’s wanted to ever since he woke up in that tiny hospital room against the warmth of Peter’s form. He’d been terrified and confused, but the idea had gotten into his head and wouldn’t leave him. There’s less confusion now, less terror, more lust for the way Peter pushes him against the counter and kisses him.

When he catches his breath, Stiles says, “Best terrible decision ever,” and goes in for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it, thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on tumblr as @[crownwithoutstones](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


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